About Our Quality Resources
At Pathways Steiner Kindergarten in Rotorua we use really high quality resources. This includes the German Stockmar watercolour paint and Stockmar natural beeswax crayons, and Swedish watercolour painting paper.
Watercolour Painting
Watercolour painting is a wonderful part of our learning at Pathways Kindy and a favourite with our children.
The intent is to give them an experience of colour, rather than form. The wet paint is laid on wet paper, which allows the colours to flow, blending into one another in beautiful, unexpected ways.
The children’s paintings are quite magical… there really is something special about them.
In order for the paper to stand up to being wet and painted on, it needs to be high quality – ours is Swedish painting paper, and we get it from Humanity Books & Fine Arts Supplies.
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Drawing
The children often begin their day with some drawing, and it is available to them throughout the time they are inside. They specially enjoy the task of making birthday cards for another child’s special celebration. The Stockmar crayons we use are made from high quality natural beeswax. The children love the smoothness, shape and colours of them – perfectly sized for little hands.
Natural resources / few toys philosophy
One of the many gorgeous little corners you will find on any given day at Pathways Kindergarten.
At Pathways we follow the Steiner principle that the simplest toys foster the greatest creativity. The children play and learn with simple and eco-friendly toys such as pine cones, shells, acorns, yarn, silk rags and handkerchiefs, sticks and branches, wooden blocks, stones, cardboard etc. It really is a beautiful space for children to play and learn.
You really must come for a visit to see how the toys and resources we have available for our children ignite imaginative play and creativity… less really is more.
Beeswax Modelling
At Pathways we model with beeswax, which is a wonderful and natural alternative to many of the synthetic modelling materials available. It is all natural, non-toxic and it smells so nice when you work with it.
Ours is purchased from Humanity Books and Fine Art Supplies. One of the best things about it is that it takes human warmth to make it work and you have to sit patiently and slowly work the wax, supporting the children to learn patience…
